Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva Podcast. I'm your host Monica Reinegal, and today

I have two listener questions. The first one from Tal has to do with sugar. The second

one from Ella is about protein. But both Tal and Ella are asking kind of the same thing.

Is there any benefit to spreading your intake out over several meals as opposed to eating

that same amount in a single sitting? So let's start with Tal's question about sugar.

Should I spread out my sugar consumption? For example, after eating dessert,

is it better to wait a couple of hours before having a coffee with sugar? That way,

I'd get less of a sugar spike. Specifically, Tal seemed to be concerned that higher blood sugar

spikes might lead to insulin resistance. Now just a quickly review, insulin is a hormone

that's released by the pancreas, and it helps clear glucose out of the bloodstream and into

the cells where it can be used for energy or stored for future use. Insulin resistance means

that our cells have become less responsive to the effects of insulin. As a result, our blood

sugar levels remain inappropriately high. Insulin resistance can be a precursor to full-blown type

two diabetes. And a lot of us worry that eating too much sugar or eating it too often is going to

increase our risk of insulin resistance or type two diabetes. But now we understand that it's

actually more the other way around. Insulin resistance or poorly controlled diabetes results

in chronically high blood sugar. It turns out that eating a lot of sugar or even just eating foods

that are rapidly converted into blood sugar, such as white bread, are not the primary factors

in the development of insulin resistance. The primary factors are excess body weight, especially if

you carry it around the waist and a sedentary lifestyle, age and genetics also play a role.

We may be genetically disposed to insulin resistance, but either way, our cells may become more

resistant to insulin with age. Now that doesn't mean that eating a lot of sugar doesn't have any

...